Dionne is a great writer, and he sets up the piece in a way that I’m sharing more for his prose than his purpose:

Donald Trump’s victory may thus be only a particularly alarming portent for moderate progressives who, less than two decades ago, were confidently on the march.

Now, the radicalization of the right threatens the consensual welfare-state capitalism that gave the West decades of relative social peace and prosperity. France is the latest example, and a dramatic one.

That aside, Dionne centers around incumbent French Socialist President Francois Hollande’s decision to forgo a re-election bid.

But the surprise, at least to much of the media and political class, was the victory of François Fillon in the November primaries for the country’s main center-right party, the Republicans. Fillon, a traditionalist Catholic, is a critic of multiculturalism and what he sees as Muslim encroachment on French identity. He routed former president Nicolas Sarkozy and the favorite, former prime minister Alain Juppé.

…

This parlous choice gave the already done-for Hollande an excellent reason to announce that he would not seek reelection. “As a Socialist, because that’s my life’s commitment, I cannot accept, I cannot resign myself, to a scattering of the left, to its breaking up,” Hollande declared Thursday night. “Because that would take away all hope of winning against conservatism, and even worse, against extremism.”

Well, yes, but the French left is already in pieces. It faces not only divisions but also subdivisions within its divisions.

Emmanuel Macron, 38, quit Hollande’s cabinet to form a new centrist political movement built around modernizing French politics and embracing economic openness. He is in a long line of politicians — going back to the center-left heyday of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair — who have positioned themselves against both the traditional left and right. “I want to unite the French, I’m not reaching out to the left or the right, I’m reaching out to the French,” he said in a television interview.

Polls suggest that Macron may be able to appeal to some of the same anti-system feeling that is motivating votes for the far right. Still, his Third Way politics are more in keeping with the prosperous and optimistic 1990s than with our gloomier and more nationalistic moment.

The same kind of nationalist fervor that led to Brexit and then the election of Donald Trump could transform much of Europe. In doing so, it will be an interesting decade ahead as international relations and the world order adapts to the changing outlook from protectionist nations.